I said a good teacher knows, that if the lesson hasn't got the message across, it is time to rewrite the lesson plan.
It was taken as an attack on you because of your stated place of employment. It was never considered that I spent over ten years instructing and guiding students and actually do know what I am talking about.

That brings to mind an incident that occurred close to 40 years ago. Over a short period, I was assigned to assist the squadron sergeant(signals) in setting up the squadron's communications. Enjoyed it & watched everything he did. At the end of the squadron exercise, he noticed my interest & asked if I would consider attending a radio course. Of course, my answer was yes. Point trying to make is not only a safety one but how with some people a "little knowledge" makes them dangerous! Read on.

2nd day of the course, the instructor asked a question, what I cannot recall exactly, but I replied: Radiation. The amount of laughter & ridicule that brought forth was comical I must admit.

However, the instructor asked to me explain my reply. I asked the soldier that started the ridicule to come forward & wrap his hand tightly around the antenna, As he did so I told him, hold tight while I hit the PTT. :-)

Fortunately for him the instructor knew what I intended to do but slightly worried that I would act & ordered him to let go of the antenna - I'm not that stupid. :-) During our smoke break, the instructor told him what would have happened had I hit the PTT. For the rest of that course, no more laughter or ridicule.

Between you, me & the goalpost, I would've hit that PTT if I knew I could have got away with it :-) Some people.....
...as to what would've happened Nick knows :-) Do you guys?

My stance on bureaucracies has been pretty obvious. However to privatise after the dismal performances of previous franchisees & the bureaucrats of the DOR turning over a profit year in & year out all during the time they were in control shows much about those in Westminster.

It seems that there are those who not only don't care about running the country but just want their "pals" to rake in the profit.

Boeing has redesigned the software so that it will disable MCAS if it receives conflicting data from its sensors.
As part of the upgrade, Boeing will install an extra warning system on all 737 Max aircraft, which was previously an optional safety feature.

For Capt Brady, author of the Boeing 737 technical guide, this saga presents a long list of issues which need to be looked at.

"The level of automation of the aircraft, the behind the scenes systems, the risk analysis processes gone through at Boeing, the oversight by the regulator, the conversion training, the level of training generally, the manual flying skills of the crews. All of it needs to be reviewed in light of these accidents," he says.

Martin, much as you want to hate corporations and damn them at every chance you get, Ethiopian Airlines stated that the crew had been trained on the MCAS system after the Lion Air crash on the new procedures for the 737 Max which were released and mandated to be trained before flying by government regulators.

That doesn't mean that the training they got was correct, that will have to be determined.

Martin, much as you want to hate corporations and damn them at every chance you get, Ethiopian Airlines stated that the crew had been trained on the MCAS system after the Lion Air crash on the new procedures for the 737 Max which were released and mandated to be trained before flying by government regulators.

That doesn't mean that the training they got was correct, that will have to be determined.

What I heard on NPR is that they did disconnect the MCAS and then it reactivated it is not know if the crew did or the airplane did on it's own. In either case if the sensor was the cause it makes sense to me that the plane behaved as it did.

Martin, much as you want to hate corporations and damn them at every chance you get, Ethiopian Airlines stated that the crew had been trained on the MCAS system after the Lion Air crash on the new procedures for the 737 Max which were released and mandated to be trained before flying by government regulators.

That doesn't mean that the training they got was correct, that will have to be determined.

What I heard on NPR is that they did disconnect the MCAS and then it reactivated it is not know if the crew did or the airplane did on it's own. In either case if the sensor was the cause it makes sense to me that the plane behaved as it did.

According to the WaPo and the NYT, the pilots turned the MCAS back on as a last resort after they could not adjust the trim manually with the trim wheels mounted on their seats.

According to the WaPo and the NYT, the pilots turned the MCAS back on as a last resort after they could not adjust the trim manually with the trim wheels mounted on their seats.

That's plausible.

If MCAS had driven the trim to the end-stop, then it is 100 full turns of the trim adjuster wheel to get back to the mid-position. Manually adjusting that would fatally take longer than the pilots had to respond...

And note that the trim adjusts the angle of the entire tailplain surfaces. That easily overrides anything the pilots can do with the control stick controlled elevators...

Trim tabs are small surfaces connected to the trailing edge of a larger control surface on a boat or aircraft, used to control the trim of the controls, i.e. to counteract hydro- or aerodynamic forces and stabilise the boat or aircraft in a particular desired attitude without the need for the operator to constantly apply a control force. This is done by adjusting the angle of the tab relative to the larger surface.